Airline Travel

Plane restroom the best place to change a diaper

Q: I recently flew first class from Orlando, Fla., to Los Angeles. There was a couple with a little girl, maybe 2 years old, and the kid screeched the whole time. ... I could have ignored the screeching, but when they changed her diaper, the whole first class filled with an unpleasant stench. As a mom and grandma, I felt this was disgusting. Maybe there should be a rule that kids needs to be changed in the toilet area. What's your take on this?

A: The Federal Aviation Administration doesn't have a rule on where diaper changing should occur, only when -- and the when is when the seat belt sign is off. If an airline has no regulation (check websites), it is up to the parent.

SALT LAKE CITY -- Investigators say they seized computers and other electronics from a University of Utah professor accused of viewing child pornography on a flight because they feared he'd have someone else destroy evidence.

LAYTON -- The holiday that many mark as the beginning of summer figures to be a busy one on Utah roads.

The days when every passenger in the cabin of a long-haul flight had to watch the same family-friendly movie on an overhead screen are quickly coming to an end.

American Airlines has announced that it is testing an in-flight video system that enables passengers to wirelessly stream movies and TV shows from an onboard library to their laptop computers and other electronic devices.

American began testing the system last month on two wide-body jets flying across the country and will expand the testing this summer.

YUMA, Ariz. -- Three more Southwest Airlines jetliners have small, subsurface cracks that are similar to the ones suspected in the fuselage tear on another of its planes. Federal aviation officials are considering an order for other airlines to inspect their aircraft.

The 5-foot-long hole tore open Friday in the passenger cabin roof shortly after the Southwest plane carrying 118 people left Phoenix for Sacramento, Calif. It made a rapid descent, landing at a military base in Yuma, 150 miles southwest of Phoenix. No one was hurt.

Obama seeking hike in airline ticket price

Although the airline industry has collected billions of dollars in fees to check bags and change flight reservations, among other charges, it is crying foul over a government proposal to increase a passenger charge by $2.50 a ticket.

Facing a massive federal deficit, President Obama's latest budget proposes giving airports the authority to raise a passenger facility charge to pay for airport construction projects. The current fee is $4.50 a ticket and could go as high as $7 to offset $1.1 billion in cuts to airport grants.

WASHINGTON -- As the uproar over the government's use of pat-downs and full-body scanners at airports ebbs, new technology is being tested that is designed to allay privacy concerns over the grainy nude images produced by the machines.

Scanners being tested in three U.S. airports starting this week will only display for screeners a generic stick figure, and any suspicious object on a passenger's body will be flagged for inspection by a pale red box on the drawing. A passenger cleared to go will see the screen flash green and read "OK."